The present invention pertains to a visor assembly and particularly a control for releasably holding a visor in a stored position.
Visor assemblies for use in vehicles, such as automobiles, typically use some form of a friction mechanism between a pivot rod mounting the visor to the vehicle roof and the visor body to allow the visor to be lowered from the roof and adjusted to a desired lowered position, rotated about the visor rod and held in position for use. The mechanism must permit relatively easy adjustment of the visor yet hold the visor in a desired position. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,500,131 and 4,828,313 represent visor controls, which utilize U-shaped clamps fitted within a visor body and which receive a visor rod for providing the desired control. Such clamps have been used extensively in vehicle visors and include a detent position for raising and holding the visor in a snap-up stored position against the vehicle headliner and when the visor is lowered frictionally to hold the visor with respect to the pivot rod in a selected use position.
The torque controls represented by the above patents are held within a visor core which has been molded of a polymeric material to include means for holding the control against movement with respect to the visor body. With the use of a lightweight, thin fiberboard core, as opposed to a clam-shell type core, such torque control devices cannot be readily attached to the fiberboard. Also, due to the significant pressures encountered when the visor is rotated, the torque control reacts to apply a significant force to the core. With a thin planar fiberboard core, breakage can easily occur at this interface. These problems have been addressed in the past as represented by U.S. Pat. No. 3,035,864 which discloses a visor made of a fiberboard core in which a cylindrical visor pivot rod is employed. The visor torque control extends substantially along the length of the entire upper edge of the visor and is stapled at several locations to provide sufficient surface area attachment of the torque control to the cardboard visor. Although such attachment provides a secure interconnection for this type of visor core, the visor pivot rod itself provides no detent operation and the stapling of the elongated torque control requires additional costly manufacturing and fastening steps and the added cost of the control itself. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an improved torque control with the features and attributes of the torque control of U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,500,131 and 4,828,313 and yet attach it to a relatively thin fiberboard core.